Data Protection & Cookies

Data protection

You are reading this data protection information due to the GDPR coming into force / May 2018. This shall govern the collection and use of personal data which are recorded under certain circumstances when you contact us. When you contact us, the website provider (for example, via contact form, enquiry form or e-mail), your details are stored for the purpose of processing the request and for the event that there are follow-up questions. On our website, there is the option of providing personal data for contacting us. However, this is not absolutely essential, as this can also be done by telephone, fax, e-mail, post or in person. In all cases, the data are subject to data protection. Please take a few minutes – we want to tell you how we handle your personal data. Your personal rights are our highest priority. We therefore want to protect your rights. All data protection obligations that go beyond this data protection declaration shall remain unaffected.

Why do we collect data?

The collection and use of your personal data serves the sole purpose of enabling you to access our services or of providing you with exemplary customer service. To enable you to access our website and to be able to offer you an optimum range of services. If you have no interest in being kept up-to-date on the latest developments, as well as current information on products, offers and services, you can tell us at any time.

Which data do we collect?

There is a range of situations in which your personal data can help us to provide you with a better service. You could, for example, be asked for personal information if you start a transaction. You will only ever be asked for such information that is relevant for the respective situation. This includes, for example, name, postal address, telephone number, e-mail address, date of birth or credit card details. We collect information for market research purposes in order to get to know you better and consequently to be able to provide you with a better service, or on what you do on our website. These data are useful to see which areas of our website and internet service interest you the most.

Forwarding personal data

We take the protection of your personal rights very seriously. We assure you that we will neither sell nor lend your data to other providers. To be able to provide an exemplary service, we only give personal data to reliable subcontractors under certain circumstances (see list below for more details) who are obligated, however, to protect these data in accordance with the data protection declaration. These companies are employed by us (agencies, NL providers, …) or may help us to process information, carry out orders, take up services. To deliver products to you, to manage and maintain customer data, to provide a customer service, to assess your interest in our products and services, to conduct market research or to carry out customer satisfaction surveys. These companies are obligated to protect your personal data in compliance with our data protection declaration for the protection of your personal rights and are likewise subject to the GDPR. Under certain circumstances, we may be compelled to disclose your personal data due to statutory provisions or legal transactions.

Protection of your personal data

The website uses the encryption industry standard SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) in some places. Thereby, the confidentiality of your personal details and credit cards information for transactions over the internet is guaranteed. However, we also take internal precautionary measures to protect your personal data from loss, theft and misuse, as well as from unauthorised access, transfer, amendment and destruction. You are also invited to do this and help us to better protect your personal data through appropriate precautionary measures. Change your password frequently, protect it and be careful when passing on sensitive data. Use secure passwords and be sure to always use a secure web browser or web service.

Protection of personal rights

As already mentioned, we take the protection of your personal rights very seriously. In order to guarantee the security of your personal data, these guidelines are passed on to all employees and security measures for the protection of personal rights are strictly implemented within the company. The website contains links to the websites of other companies. We are not responsible for how these companies handle personal rights and therefore recommend that you enquire with these companies about their data protection declarations.

Keeping personal data up-to-date

We have also taken internal measures to ensure that your personal data are kept correct, complete and up-to-date for the intended purpose. Of course, you have the right at any time to access the personal data you have provided and change them. You can help us by ensuring that your contact information and default settings are correct, complete and up-to-date.

E-mail newsletter

In our e-mail newsletter, we regularly inform you about the company’s products and services. If you would like to receive the newsletter, we will require a valid e-mail address, as well as information allowing us to verify that you or the owner of the e-mail address provided have agreed to receive the newsletter. Any further data is not collected. These data shall only be used to send the newsletter. A subscriber to the e-mail newsletter can withdraw their consent for the storage of the aforementioned data, as well as for it being used to send the newsletter at any time. You can unsubscribe via a link in the newsletter itself or via e-mail with the subject ‘Unsubscribe’.

Cookies

Cookies and IT technologies

As common with many other company websites, we also use what is called ‘cookies’ and other technologies to obtain a better view of which areas of our website are especially popular, how our visitors move around the website and how much time they spend in different areas. Moreover, we use cookies and other technologies to ensure that our online advertising is effective and that customers are aware of our products and services. We use cookies and other technologies to analyse the data traffic to our website so that we can further improve its design and functionality, and to investigate the efficiency of communication with our customers. Furthermore, we use cookies to better align the website with your needs and to be able to provide you with more convenient navigation at each visit. As with most websites, certain information is also automatically collected by us and stored in log files. This information includes internet protocol addresses (IP addresses), browser type, internet service provider (ISP), referring / exit pages, operating system, date/ time stamps and clickstream data. In our own e-mails, we also use what is called ‘click-through URLs’ which are linked to content on our website. If you click on one of these URLs, you pass by our web server before you reach the actual target web page. We track these ‘click-through’ data to ascertain how much interest there is in certain topics, and to measure the efficiency of communication with our customers. If you don’t wish such data to be collected, simply do not click on text or graphic links in e-mails. Moreover, we use what is called ‘pixel tags’ (tiny picture files) which supply information about which areas of our website have been visited by customers, or measure the effectiveness of customers’ searches on our website. E-mail messages can also be sent to the customer in a readable format with the help of pixel tags. We can also check whether e-mails have been opened to ensure that such messages are only being sent to our customers who are really interested.

Use of external services (incl. tracking services)

The website contains content from third parties, such as videos from YouTube and maps from Google Maps (hereinafter referred to as ‘Third-party Providers’). To use such content, the transfer of the user’s IP address to the respective Third-party Provider is required for technical purposes. Because without the IP address, the Third-party Provider would not be able to send the content embedded in the website to the respective user’s browser. We have no influence on whether a Third-party Provider stores or otherwise uses the IP address for statistical purposes, for example.

Google Analytics Universal Tracking

Google My Business, Google Maps, YouTube

Google Ads Remarketing

Google Ads Conversion

Facebook and Facebook Conversion

Various social media services

NL registration and NL service

Statistics and analysis services of various third-party contractors

Various accounting and assessment services

Use of various other cookie services

What is a cookie? A cookie is a small text file which is stored on your device when you visit a website and helps to identify your device. Cookies are used to store information if you visit different pages of a website or return to a website. They do not contain any personal information and cannot run any programs which could launch a virus. Managing and deleting cookies: If you want to block or delete cookies, you can make these changes in the browser settings. To manage cookies, most browsers allow you to accept or reject all cookies or only accept certain types of cookies. You can also set it so that you are asked each time a website wants to store a cookie. The process for managing and deleting cookies is different depending on which browser you use. To find out how you do that in a certain browser, you can use the integrated help function in the browser or alternatively, visit www.aboutcookies.org . Here it is explained step by step how cookies are managed and deleted in the most common browsers.

Use of Google Analytics

This website uses Google Analytics, a web analysis service provided by Google Inc. (‘Google’). Google Analytics uses ‘cookies’, which are text files stored on your computer to help the website analyse how users use the website. The information generated by the cookie regarding your use of this website is usually transferred to a Google server in the USA and stored there. Through the IP anonymisation activated on this website, your IP address will be shortened by Google beforehand within the Member States of the European Union or other signatories to the Agreement on the European Economic Area. Only in exceptional cases the full IP address will be transferred to a Google server in the USA and shortened there. Google will use this information on behalf of the operator of this website to evaluate your use of the website, to compile reports on website activity and to provide other services to the website operator regarding website and internet use. The IP address communicated by your browser as part of Google Analytics is not associated with any other data held by Google. You can prevent the installation of cookies using the corresponding setting in your browser. Please note, however, that this may prevent you from making full use of all the functions of this website. You can prevent the collection of data regarding your use of this website (incl. your IP address), as well as the processing of this data by Google, by downloading and installing the browser plug-in available at the following link tool.google.com. You can prevent Google Analytics from collecting information by clicking on the following link. An opt-out cookie is installed which prevents the collection of your information when you visit this website in the future: Disable Google Analytics. You will find more detailed information on the terms and conditions of use and data protection of Google Analytics and at support.google.com. This website uses Google Analytics by means of IP masking to guarantee anonymised collection of IP addresses. Please be aware that we also use Google Analytics to evaluate data from Ads and the double-click cookie for statistical purposes. Should you not want this, you can disable this via Ads Personalisation at adssettings.google.com.

Use of Facebook plug-ins

This website uses social plug-ins (‘Plug-ins’) for the social network facebook.com which is operated by Facebook Inc., 1601 S. California Ave, Palo Alto, CA 94304, USA (‘Facebook’). The plug-ins can be recognised by the Facebook logo or the addition of ‘Facebook social plug-in’. When you visit one of our websites that contains a plug-in like this, your browser connects directly to the Facebook servers. The content of the plug-in is then transferred by Facebook directly to your browser and integrated by this into the website. Through the integration of plug-ins, Facebook receives information that you have visited the corresponding page of our website. For example, if you are logged into Facebook, Facebook can immediately assign your visit to our website to your Facebook profile. If you interact with the plug-ins, for example, you click the ‘like’ button or write a comment, the corresponding information is sent directly to Facebook by your browser and stored there. For the purpose and scope of the data collection and the further processing and use of the data by Facebook, as well as your rights relating to this and settings options for protecting your privacy, please refer to Facebook’s data protection policy. If you do not want Facebook to collect data on you via our website, you should log out of Facebook before visiting our website. Further information on the data collected and used by Facebook, your rights and options for protecting your privacy can be found in Facebook’s data protection policy.

Use of Ads Remarketing

This website uses cookies for the purpose of appealing to visitors via remarketing campaigns with online adverts at a later time in the Google advertising network. Third-party providers, such as Google, use cookies from a visit to this website to display remarketing adverts. As a user, you have the option of disabling the use of cookies by Google on Google’s deactivation page at adssettings.google.com.

Rights and right of objection

If you have questions or concerns about the data protection declaration, please contact us. Send us a message (see below for contact details). You can, of course, ask us which of your data are processed, where these data come from, what they are used for and to whom they are forwarded. Likewise, you can have false data corrected or wrongly processed data deleted. The provisions of the Datenschutzgesetz [German Data Protection Act] shall apply. We are entitled to adjust the data protection declaration from time to time in line with the new GDPR. If fundamental changes are made, a corresponding notification shall be published on our website together with the updated version of the data protection declaration. You may assert your rights to information, correction, deletion or blocking at any time. If you wish to assert your rights, in particular if you wish to withdraw your consent for the future collection, storage or use of your personal data by us, please contact us by e-mail, telephone or post.

Third party vendors are independent owners of cookies, so their policies apply. Below is the list of third party providers. GOOGLE for more information visit the page >> more info GOOGLE ANALYTICS for more information visit the page >> more info FACEBOOK for more information visit the page >> more info